To prepare a sales meeting agenda, select topics in keeping with the objective.  If you want to motivate salespeople, what subjects would be most likely to do it? Wouldn’t something on enthusiasm be inspirational? What about positive thinking?  Should you have someone give an account of how he succeeded?

Sales Meeting Agenda Questions

Let’s suppose you want to train instead of motivate in your sales meeting agenda.  In what areas is sales training needed?  Is it: product information or closing techniques?   Can your sales training needs be satisfied at one sales meeting or should a series of sales meetings be scheduled?

Which training needs are most important?  For example, isn’t it all important for every sales person to master his or her sales presentation? Which needs are most urgent? Shouldn’t you do something now to get them to move overstocked items?

By asking questions such as these you can then decide upon appropriate subject matter for your sales meeting agenda.

Arrange Your Sales Meeting Agenda by Subject

Items for the agenda should be arranged in logical sequence. Tips on approaching the customer are placed before methods of presenting the product.  A demonstration of the product should precede closing the sale.

The sales vice president of an industrial concern said, “A natural sequence (in your sales meeting agenda) makes for better understanding. Schedule any general information first. Then narrow the subject matter toward your objective, becoming more specific all the time.”

Sample Sales Meeting Agenda

Objective: To make strong closers of the salespeople.
1st Subject (3 minutes): Recent sales trends showing a need for closing more sales.
2nd Subject (3 minutes): The steps in a sale—attention, interest, desire, action.
3rd Subject (15 minutes): Step number 4—how to close, or how to prompt action.
4th Subject (15 minutes): A movie or some demonstrations on trial closes.
5th Subject (3 minutes): Summary, plea for application of sales training concepts in the field, inspirational close.

Sales Meeting Agenda Sequence

In the foregoing sample sales meeting agenda, note the logical sequence of subject matter. The need or reason for strong closing is developed before emphasis is placed on the subject. This makes the salesperson want to learn more about closing techniques.

Then the steps in a sale are briefly covered. This shows the relationship of the close to the other steps, pointing up its importance. Thereafter, all emphasis is on the close itself.  You will find your sales meetings to be more effective by using this approach.

Review additional posts for more information on planning a Sales Meeting Agenda.

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SAMPLE QUIZ ON APPROACHES

Type of Selling: Over the counter.

1.    There are three types of approaches.    TRUE     FALSE

2.    The salutation approach is always used on friends,      TRUE     FALSE

3.    “May I help you?” is an overworked service approach.     TRUE       FALSE

4.    “What may I show you?” is a good service approach,    TRUE     FALSE

5.    A merchandise approach saves time.     TRUE     FALSE

6.    The customer’s name should not be used in the approach.   TRUE       FALSE

7.    Tell a waiting customer, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”    TRUE       FALSE

8.    You should never have anything in your hands during the approach.    TRUE       FALSE

After the quiz has been distributed and scored, discuss each question.  “Who has the answer to the first one . . . False? You’re right – that’s false! But what’s the main idea there? So what should you do as a result?”

The important thing is to bring out the underlying teaching point. How the individual answered the question is not significant. What the group finally learned about it — that’s the thing.
Multiple choice and completion type questions can also be used. True-false is usually best, however, because it’s so simple.
 
Don’t grade adults. They resent it. Instead, let each person correct his own paper. They’ll usually want a “yardstick,” so give it to them: “If you missed only three, you did very well. If you missed less than three, you should be the instructor!”

Let them keep their tests. Encourage a review at some future date. But avoid a school room atmosphere. Adults absolutely will not accept it. They left school long ago and they’re not going back!

Sales Meeting Ideas

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Announce a Welcomed Policy or Procedure

Distribute a New Sales Aid

Tell of New Merchandising Material

Spring a New Ad or Advertising Campaign

Play Up an Addition to Your Product Line

Show Next Year’s Models

Announce a Contest

Name Contest Winners

Present Achievement Awards

Use a Fast Inspirational Speech

Devise a Gimmick

Enter Spouses and Sweethearts

Use Meditation

Surprise Them With a V.I.P.

Sales Meeting

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DON’T let a semi-climax outshine the conclusion of your meeting. The major highlight should invariably be last.

DON’T summarize after the climax. Do it earlier. While summation helps get your message across, it’s not sufficiently colorful to serve as the climax.

DON’T thank participants at the end of the meeting. Anytime before will do. An expression of thanks at the end takes the edge off things.

DON’T stall around if you finish early. Conclude the meeting ahead of time. A stall is anticlimactic.

DON’T leave the impression you’re closing the meeting merely because you’ve run out of topics: “Well, if there’s nothing else to cover . . .”

DON’T acknowledge a raised hand when you’re bringing the meeting to a close. Ignore it. See the individual later. His question or comment would have taken the frosting off the cake.

DON’T let a comment from the floor cause a long discussion at the last minute. If someone speaks up even though not invited to do so, make him be brief. Brush him off politely but quickly.

DON’T let someone in the audience have the last word, or even the next to last word. There’s no reason to believe he will say something to help you close on a high note. Regain control of the situation. Then close it yourself.

DON’T ignore the obvious. It usually is evident that the audience will want to know some fact, such as the time of the next session or date of the next meeting. Anticipate these things. Supply the information so there won’t be anticlimactic last minute questions from the floor.

DON’T be indefinite or indecisive. Conclude with vigor.

DON’T thank the audience for attending, especially near the close. If you’ve conducted a sparkling meeting, the audience should thank you!

Sales Meeting

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It’s refreshing to the audience to hear such comments from fellow salespeople, because too often they come from company officials. It’s a good way to vary the routine.

Sales Meeting Ideas

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2.    Three people are called to the front and given balloons to blow up. The emcee explains that each balloon represents the individual’s opportunity with the company. All blow together to see who can make the most of his opportunity. By prearrangement, one person tries in vain to inflate his balloon. The next inflates his but lets it go. The third inflates his balloon until it bursts.  The emcee then points out that the first person didn’t make anything of his opportunity, and that the second person let the opportunity get away from him. “But the third person burst the opportunity wide open. And that’s what we want to do-burst this opportunity wide open!”

3.    At a suitable time in the program a salesperson in the audience hollers—”I want to become a top producer. How can I do it?” The emcee has the man come to the front and stick his head in a bucket of water. The salesperson soon needs to breathe and struggles to get his head out. But the emcee holds his head down a few seconds longer so it appears to be a “real” struggle. After the salesperson gets his head out, the emcee says, “When you want to be a top producer as badly as you wanted to get your head out of that water, then you’ll be a top producer—that’s how to do it!”

Sales Meeting Themes

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In this event, several chairs are placed in each corner of the room. A key person is designated, one who excels in the subject concerned, to handle each topic. Persons desiring information on a particular subject then meet with the group discussing it; everyone joins the discussion group of his choice.

This arrangement is a workshop in its simplest form. It’s effective because there’s freedom of decision on the part of the audience and because each salesperson receives help in the area where, presumably, he or she needs it most. Then, too, it’s a departure from nothing but speeches.

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There are many ways of creating a change of pace. Catalog the areas to be considered, including specific techniques of staging. The next few posts will cover different methods of adding variety.  Here is the first method.

Rotat Chairmanship of the Meetings to Create Variety

Variety can be created by rotating the responsibility for meetings among assistants and the strongest salespeople. Each takes a turn at planning and staging a meeting.

Most of us have a false sense of pride, the feeling that no one else can do the job as well as we can. But an accomplished executive delegates responsibility to others; he personally does little more than supervise.

A top flight sales executive can walk out of many of his meetings, the moment they begin, with no harm done. When all goes well, he can be proud of his organizational ability. By letting others play a major role, he takes a load off his own shoulders and helps develop the people under him.

The main point here, however, is that it gives variety to the meeting. Each get-together has a different personality and a different viewpoint behind it. This keeps the series of meetings fresh and crisp.

Anything that’s a switch from the ordinary will produce some much needed variety.

In certain instances, other departments could stage the meeting. They could show what they do to design, test, produce, ship, or account for the product. This would cause the sales staff to have a better understanding of the overall operation. It would also promote teamwork between the sales department and others.

Still another idea of this type: firms supplying services, materials or products could assume responsibility for a meeting or some part thereof. Suppliers are usually well-versed on their own merchandise.

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Since sales can always be higher, salespeople caught the brunt of it. Even when other personnel were excluded, salespeople were often made to suffer through such meetings.
But the boss finally realized that his tactics were wrong.

As American business grew up, the boss grew up with it.  He learned that good sales meetings are conducted on a positive plane, that salespeople must be encouraged rather than reprimanded.  He found that emphasis should be placed on the successes of today and the plans for tomorrow—not on yesterday’s failures.

A supervisor may be extremely dissatisfied with his salespeople.  Even so, there’s little to be gained from “reading the riot act” to them.  An open admission that things are all wrong is an admission that management may also be at fault.  It usually causes a group of salespeople to defend themselves and, if possible, to strike back.

Good planning, therefore, sometimes includes restraint.  Mistakes are covered with sufficient tact.  An error is referred to as possibly an isolated instance. The meeting is then better received.

A Case in Point

Here’s a case history – An appliance manufacturer developed a “canned” sales presentation.  It worked very well. But the salespeople didn’t continue using it. They became “too smart” to use it. They added things, omitted others.

Before long there was little resemblance between how they were selling and how they should have been selling.  Result: sales dropped sharply.

When the sales manager discovered the trouble, he hit the roof! “Those idiots, I ought to fire every one of them!  I’ll really tell them a thing or two!”

Did he?  Of course not. He was too intelligent for that.

Instead, he planned a sales meeting in a positive vein.

The meeting covered:

-    Why a “canned” presentation was developed
-    How it was developed
-    The expense incurred in development
-    Proof of its success, including several examples
-    How to use the presentation
-    Demonstrations of its use
-    An appeal for its use in the field.
-    The announcement that several of the staff would be asked to report their success at the next meeting.

As might be expected, reaction to the meeting was quite favorable. Instead of being bawled out, the salespeople were sold on the idea of using the presentation, shown how to use it, and were inspired to follow through.  Sales volume started climbing immediately.

The point: a sales meeting is not a place to blow-off steam.  Good meetings are usually based on a positive tone.

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Sales meetings are valuable for many reasons.  They help increase sales, of course, and they allow for many training opportunities as well and improving communications between sales and management.  One additional benefit that may be gained from holding well planned and designed sales meetings is finding solutions to common sales problems.

The advantage of working to solve sales problems in sales meetings is that you can take advantage of the group dynamic.

Group thinking is widely used in business today as a means of solving complex problems. The “Mastermind” technique is as useful now as it was fifty years ago.  Many firms have increased sales as a result of taking time in sales meeting to discuss problems and brainstorm solutions.  Others have reduced selling costs, and some have done both.

Another reason to discuss and solve sales problems in sales meetings is that by involving the sales people in coming up with the solution to the problem you are getting them to buy into the answers they come up with and be more willing to help work towards and accept the solutions to the problem.

Staging a Sales Problem Solving Session in Sales Meetings

It’s easy to stage a problem solving conference during your sales meeting. First, the problem is clearly stated and defined.  One person suggests the first step toward solving a problem. The next missing link is provided by another person. Someone else fills in the third gap, and before long a solution is reached.  During this procedure it is important that people can speak and think freely without being edited and without fear of being criticised by other.  True creativity springs from opens minds and mouths.

One of the nation’s leading airlines arranged for regular problem solving conferences years ago. The director of operations said, “Every major problem involves more than one member of the staff. Why not let all concerned, tackle it together?”

This is the essence of solving problems in sales meeting.  Problems seldom affect only one person in the organization and often the trickle down affect makes them a company wide problem.  By taking time as a group to brainstorm and seek solutions you are gaining the synergy that can only occur from group participation.

Without a doubt, there are many benefits from planning and holding regular effective sales meeting, not the least of which is solving sales problems.

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